The Last Winner

Chapter 4 The Underground Lab

The black car descended underground.

The concrete walls still held the warmth of the day, and the air carried the mixed scent of cooling oil and dust.

Zara looked out the window. There were no visible cameras. At least, none she could see.

The car continued deeper into the underground facility, weaving slowly through a maze of interconnected passages, as if searching for a way out.

There was no driver in the front seat.

The cabin was so quiet that the only sound was the low hum of the electric motor.

Neither Zara nor Gavin spoke.

Not until the signal bars on the car’s system began disappearing, and the navigation screen went blank.

Zara lowered her eyes to the center console. A route heat map continuously redrew itself on the screen.

Her fingers tapped lightly against her knee, matching the refresh rate of the system data.

The signal dropped one bar at a time until it disappeared completely.

Zara stopped looking at her phone.

The car slowly came to a stop. Gavin stepped out first. Zara followed behind him. As she closed the door, she lowered her head and glanced at her phone.

The screen had connected to the car’s Bluetooth and was quickly pulling the driving logs from the circles they had just driven.

The progress bar moved rapidly.

Route_log_20260504_1827… 78%.

She glanced toward Gavin.

He was standing on a tile two meters away from the wall.

His right foot shifted back slightly, lowering his stance, while his left wrist turned subtly, as if confirming something.

Zara quickly ran through the possibilities in her mind.

Location verification?

Secondary identity check?

Area activation?

Whatever it was, the wall was likely going to move in the next few seconds.

She tapped the screen and terminated the process. Then she put her phone away and walked toward him.

That was when she noticed the flat black band on the inside of Gavin’s left wrist light up.

Three seconds later, the wall silently split open.

"Welcome to our lab."

Gavin glanced back at her.

"Everything you've seen before… was just the interface."

Inside, the silence was almost unnatural.

The only sound was the low hum of the machines, like the breathing of some enormous creature.

Two technicians in gray uniforms stood in the distance, heads lowered as they studied tablets in their hands. Their voices were so quiet they were nearly swallowed by the sound of the equipment.

The space was massive, but there were surprisingly few sections. The most noticeable structure was the circular system at the center.

It wasn't a server rack. It wasn't a traditional computing cluster.

Enclosed behind transparent panels, it contained layers upon layers of modules, each one constantly shifting and changing.

Zara stopped.

"You’re not building a prediction model."

Gavin didn't answer.

The screens along the side weren't displaying code, only graphs, connection maps, networks of relationships.

Nodes were constantly being tagged, removed, and replaced.

This wasn't analysis. It was real-time decision-making.

"You're filtering."

Gavin glanced at her.

"Close enough. We're shortening the timeline."

"Shortening what?"

"The time between possibility..."

He looked toward the system.

"...and outcome. Normally, the market needs years to determine who will win. We compress that into minutes. The investors only care about the result."

Zara watched the nodes. Some were marked green, others turned red. The red ones quickly faded away, as if they had been erased from the system.

"What about the red ones?"

"Invalid variables."

Zara didn't ask again.

But she thought of the words she'd seen before.

Log archived.

Not recorded.

Classified.

"CH-13 is part of this?"

"A model."

Gavin looked at the system.

"It identifies those who are unlikely to make it to the next system cycle."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Zara stared at the machine, and she finally understood.

This wasn't a tool designed to help companies win. It was deciding—

who was allowed to exist.

She said nothing.

They continued deeper into the facility.

The lights gradually dimmed until they stopped in front of a wall.

It wasn't an equipment area.

It was a simple room, deliberately isolated from everything else.

A row of developer profiles covered the wall.

Each one followed the same format:

Photo.

ID number.

Name.

Some were marked Active, some Transferred.

Others were covered in gray, leaving only the identification numbers visible.

Zara's eyes moved across the photos. Then suddenly stopped.

A familiar name caught her attention.

Lucas Grant.

There was no explanation. No job title, no additional information, only one status marker.

RIP.

Zara didn't move.

Her breathing slowed, as if something heavy had pressed down on her chest.

Gavin followed her gaze and saw Lucas's photo.

He didn't speak immediately. He simply stood beside her, looking at Lucas's face.

"He was the first person who understood what this system really was."

Zara didn't turn around.

The silence stretched for several seconds.

"Later, he found the problem..."

Gavin paused.

"Sometimes understanding something and having the power to change it are two completely different things."

Zara's fingers tightened slightly.

Lucas's eyes looked darker under the cold white lights.

She remembered the day that photo was taken. Lucas had just received his offer from Stellar. They were sitting in a small restaurant when he took the picture and sent it to her, asking if it looked professional enough.

"Let's go."

Gavin turned away.

"Remember. You have until the thirteenth to complete your work."

He glanced back at her.

"This place doesn't keep invalid variables."

Gavin was already walking away.

Zara didn't move.

Her eyes remained fixed on the photo.

RIP.

The letters reflected coldly under the white light, like a result the system had already confirmed.